American Political Tradition

In this course we will study the theoretical ideas that informed the creation and development of America’s political system and consider some of the major contemporary challenges to the maintenance of American democracy. We will afford special attention to the political thought of the American Founders, the place of religion in public life, the nature of written constitutions, and the role of America in the world. This course will emphasize serious conversation about important texts and documents. Authors will include James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, the Anti-Federalists, Montesquieu, Alexis de Tocqueville, Frederick Douglass, John C. Calhoun, William Lloyd Garrison, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Croly, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Russel Kirk, Milton Friedman, William Brennan, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Antonin Scalia.